


not yet

by fluffysfics



Series: punk rock never dies, and neither does the Master [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad coping mechanisms, Depression, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, punk Master, the Master has good friends, the Master’s time on Earth, very inadvisable usage of ladders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: The Master is still reeling from his encounter with the Doctor’s eighth self, and struggling to come to terms with the fact that he can’t live his human life forever. His friends on Earth aren’t willing to let him go without a fight, though.
Relationships: The Master (Dhawan)/Original Male Character(s), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: punk rock never dies, and neither does the Master [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696336
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	not yet

Three weeks. Three weeks since he’d seen the Doctor. Also three weeks since the Master had last seen his human friends. Guilt over that had been bubbling in his stomach since the day he’d abandoned them in that nightclub, and it had been rising higher every time he stared at the ringing phone on the kitchen table without picking it up, or hid in his bedroom as one of them thumped on the front door and shouted for him to open up. 

It was tearing him apart, trying to leave them behind. He should move house completely, cut himself off _properly_ , but something in him just couldn’t take that last step. So he was stuck here, torturing himself with their unending concern for him. Three weeks, and there was still at least one attempt a day to get in touch with him. Did they ever give up? Were all humans like this? 

He’d spent most of his time seething, angry and miserable and without a clue how to vent his frustrations. Murder didn’t have much of an appeal. Getting drunk reminded him too much of the humans. And there was only so many times he could drive his fists into the walls before he was going to run out of spare regeneration energy to fix his injuries. 

Eventually, he took to lying on his bed, mind open, looking for traces of the Doctor. _His_ Doctor didn’t seem to be present in this time period; the closest impression of her was at least two decades old, and seemed to have come from America, so there was no point trying to find her now. There were other Doctors around- her third self, pottering around at UNIT, and her previous self, teaching silly human children about more things than their tiny minds could comprehend. Their presences were constant, and then there were flashes of others, whenever they’d pass through. 

The Master knew that if he wanted to, he could send a message through the decades to his Doctor. He could contact her right now, plead with her to come and pick him up, lure her in with the promise of finally telling her his secrets about Gallifrey. 

It would be easy, he thought. So easy. One little nudge, and then she’d be _his_ again; or at least close enough to touch, because she was never really his, was she? 

Drawing his mental focus in tighter, he pushed closer towards the Doctor’s consciousness in 2020. He could feel it- bright, sparkling, _fizzing_ \- a veritable fountain of energy, an unmissable beacon. They’d already made contact in these bodies, it would be easier than anything to do it again. This long, tortuous existence on Earth could be over in a double heartbeat, if he could just—

Something knocked on his third-floor window, and the Master was wrenched unceremoniously right back into his own head. 

He sat bolt upright, hearts going a mile a minute, and reached automatically for a TCE that wasn’t there. Then, he looked over at the window. 

Tasha was there, perched on a ladder, smiling at him. 

What the _fuck_. 

The Master considered lethal action, and then swiftly disregarded that idea. He was too attached to this human. Something in his chest had leapt at the sight of her, even if he didn’t want to admit it. 

He stood up, crossed to the window, and wrenched it open. 

“Harry! Where’ve ya _been_?” 

He almost shut the window on Tasha again, but her ladder swayed dangerously in the light wind, and he scowled, took her arm, and pulled her inside. She tumbled through the window in a mess of leather and bright colours and heeled boots ( _heels_ , on a _ladder_?), and landed sprawled on his bedroom floor. 

“Where the fuck did you get that ladder from?” He didn’t have any right to ask questions, but that had never stopped him before. 

“May’s cousin Andrew has one of those tree-removal businesses, yeah? Nicked one of ‘is ladders.” Tasha grinned at him. The aforementioned ladder slowly tipped to one side without a person standing on it, and then fell with a loud crash into the alleyway behind the Master’s flat. He winced. 

“You stole it,” he said, resisting the urge to laugh. 

“Yep. Worth it, we’re all worried about ya. You should see Cricket. He thinks you’ve _died_.” 

Oh, that hurt. The Master bit back the urge to say that Cricket had other friends, better people to like, and that he shouldn’t spend his time worrying. That was useless, it wasn’t going to happen. He’d inserted himself into these humans’ lives, and now he had to bear the consequences. 

“Haven’t died,” he mumbled, finding himself suddenly unable to meet Tasha’s gaze. 

“Well, duh. So what’s goin’ on? ‘Cause you’d better have a _really_ good excuse. May’s pissed. Had to do my ladder thing today, or else she was gonna break into yer flat with a hammer.” 

She clambered up to her feet, and stepped over to him. She was an inch shorter than him even in heels. Between that, and the messy, shoulder-length blonde hair, and the fierce determination in her eyes, she looked so much like the Doctor. Too much. Tears sprung to the Master’s eyes, and he backed up until his legs hit the bed, slumping down onto it like a sack of potatoes. 

That did not seem to be the reaction that Tasha had been expecting. 

“Harry? Oi. No crying. What’s goin’ on?” She sat down next to him, her shoulder bumping against his. The Doctor wouldn’t wear a jacket with _spikes_ on it. And she wouldn’t call him Harry. Maybe if he was really crying, worrying her, she’d call him Koschei. He hadn’t heard that name in so many years. 

He shook his head, swiping the tears away from his eyes. Angry as he was, there was a part of him that wanted to find the Doctor and fall into her arms, as if their centuries of rivalry had never happened. As if they were still two young boys in the Academy, in love for the first time. For the only time, in his case. 

He needed to pull himself together. Why would a human lock themself away and refuse to talk to anyone? The Master gazed at the tear stains on his fingers, and had a flash of inspiration that honestly wasn’t too far from the truth. 

“Depression,” he murmured, still staring at his hands. 

“What?” 

“Barely gotten out of bed these last few weeks.” That was the truth. “Been...thinking. Too much. Thought you wouldn’t want to see me.” Also true, mostly. “Didn’t mean to worry you.” Or at least, he’d been hoping they’d stop worrying sooner than this. 

Tasha said nothing. A minute later, her arms wound around his ribcage, her head rested against his shoulder. Her hair tickled the side of his neck, and the Master closed his eyes and let a tear fall down his cheek. 

“You gotta stop hiding,” she murmured. “We’re here for ya. Always.” 

Always. That would be nice. If he had a Chameleon Arch to hand, the Master really thought he might use it. But he didn’t, and so Harry Marsters would stay a fiction, one that he was eventually going to have to leave. Just- not yet, not yet. 

“Thank you,” he said instead, and rested his head against Tasha’s. 

“May ‘n I were goin’ out tonight. But I think we’re gonna cancel. An’ I think I’m gonna call her, and get her to come over here. She’s better at gettin’ people to think straight. Then we’re gonna call Cricket, ‘cause you owe him an apology.” 

“Think I owe all of you an apology,” he said, eyes fixed on the wall opposite. He owed his friends apologies a thousand times over, for the fact that he was eventually going to have to leave them. 

“Yeah. Maybe.” The Master wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel Tasha’s eyes on his face. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, still watching the wall, gaze tracing a hairline crack in the plaster. “I’ve been an idiot. You deserve better. You’re...” He sighed, closing his eyes. How were these humans better friends to him than anyone had been since Gallifrey? It didn’t feel possible. “You mean so much to me. Without you, Tasha, I wouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t have met May and Cricket, wouldn’t...wouldn’t have been nearly as happy as I’ve ended up.” 

“You don’t seem that happy now,” Tasha said, looking up at him with a wry smile. The Master huffed a faint laugh, shaking his head. 

“You should have seen me two years ago. I was a wreck.” He really had been. Self-destructive, constantly either angry or utterly miserable or _both_ , living the sort of lifestyle that would have killed a human in less than a year. And he’d been like that for more than three decades. The last three weeks had felt like a helpless slide back towards that way of life, and it had been _awful_. 

“And now we’re all wrecks,” Tasha said, slipping from his shoulder so that her head rested on his lap. The spikes on her jacket dug into his leg, but the Master didn’t mind. It was a feeling, a solid one, and that was better than anything else he’d managed recently. 

“Yeah. But it’s nice to have people to fuck up with,” he said, shrugging. He was quiet for a moment, back to staring at the crack in the wall. “Really, really nice, actually. I- you have no _idea_ how much I needed you to insult me from the street that day we first met.” 

Tasha snorted. “Asked ya if yer girlfriend had dumped ya, didn’t I? And I wasn’t wrong.” 

“Mm... I came to talk to you mostly because you offered me your drink.” 

“Kindness is very punk rock,” she said, prodding a hand-stitched patch on her jacket that said exactly that. 

“So’s getting pissed and throwing bottles at walls,” he said, actually grinning, an expression that felt _so_ good after these last weeks, and Tasha nodded and beamed right back at him. 

“Don’t ‘ave a patch that says that. But- yeah.” She laughed. “You’re lookin’ better already. Let’s go call the others?”

She was out of his lap and bouncing towards the phone before the Master could even object, not that he’d been intending to. Sometimes, she reminded him so much of the Doctor, and not just in her looks. But for the first time in several weeks, that comparison didn’t make his hearts ache painfully, and he felt just a little bit of the knot in his stomach loosen up. 

——

Cricket’s sleeping form was bony but warm, and currently it was curled protectively around the Master like he was never going to let go. 

It had been eight hours since Tasha had made him call the others. They’d turned up, with food and alcohol and music and _sympathy_ , more sympathy than he deserved. Humans could be so naïve. No, not naïve. Forgiving. And he was...he was grateful for it. 

May and Tasha had left eventually, but Cricket had stayed. Leaving this human was going to hurt the most, the Master realised, from where his face was buried in Cricket’s chest. He’d stayed all evening, and they’d talked, gotten a little drunk, ended up naked in the Master’s bed, which had led to now. 

It was the _talking_ that he was going to miss, more than the sex, a realisation that was very odd to him. But it was true. Having people around who cared about him was such a deeply unfamiliar thing. Having friends, having a community, being _known_. 

He was going to have to give it up some day. Maybe in six months. Maybe in a year, maybe in three years. It was going to happen. 

“Not now,” the Master murmured to himself, closing his eyes and pressing closer to the human in his bed, as if proximity could erase the simple fact that he didn’t quite belong here. He desperately wished that it would. “Not yet.” 

**Author's Note:**

> hope y’all enjoyed! comments and kudos very much appreciated <3


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